Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 329

Chapter 329

CELESTE

I swallowed. The words had hit me somewhere soft and unguarded, somewhere beneath the armor of logic and evidence I had built around myself. It was Dominic’s voice. I knew it as well as I knew my own heartbeat. But voices could be faked. Audio could be manipulated. Technology had advanced to the point where anyone with the right software could make anyone say anything.

“If you think this proves something, you are even more deluded than I thought.” I forced my voice to stay steady forced my face to remain impassive. “Audio can be doctored. Anyone with a laptop and a grudge could have manufactured this.”

“I knew you would say that.” Julian was already pulling out his phone, scrolling through his messages with trembling fingers. “I sent the recording to you from a different number. Check your phone. Have it analyzed by whatever expert you trust. You will see that I am telling the truth.”

My phone buzzed, and when I glanced at the screen, there it was: a message from an unknown number containing an audio file. The timestamp matched Julian’s claim.

“I went to plead with him, Celeste.” Julian’s voice had shifted from desperate to something that almost sounded like concern, the oily, manufactured concern of a man who believed he was finally being heard. “I went to Dominic and begged him to let you go. I told him I loved you, that I would do anything to get you back. And he laughed at me. He told me this was payback. He said he would not stop until he got bored of you. He said he did not love you, that he was only using you, and now that he has succeeded in making us get divorced, trust me, he is going to dump you.”

The words landed like blows, each one finding its mark with the precision of a weapon designed specifically to wound me. I told myself it was manipulation. I told myself Julian was a liar and a cheat and a man so desperate to reclaim what he had lost that he would say anything, fabricate anything, destroy anything. But somewhere beneath the logic, beneath the evidence of Julian’s character and the days of Dominic’s tenderness, something in my chest tightened until it hurt to breathe.

“I did not divorce you because of Dominic.” My voice came out flatter than I intended. “Even if Dominic had never existed, I would have divorced you. I divorced you because you cheated on me.”

“It was a mistake.” The tears were flowing again now, streaming down his face in rivulets that carved tracks through the grime. “I fell into temptation, and I regret it more than anything else in my miserable life. I have cut off all contact with Seraphine. I will never cheat again. Never. I swear it on my mother’s life. We can start over, Celeste. We can go back to the beginning and do it right this time.”

“Is the word ‘fool’ written on my forehead?” I stepped back another pace, putting more distance between us. “In what universe would I ever trust you again? You are a disgusting man who would readily put his dick into any hole he could find, even if that hole were carved into the wall of a sewer.”

“I deserve that. I deserve worse. But please, Celeste…”

“The scales have fallen off my eyes, Julian. I see you for exactly who you are. And the person I blame most is myself.” My voice cracked, just slightly, and I hated myself for the weakness. “I am disappointed that I ever allowed myself to marry someone like you. Get out of my sight. Go find another woman to manipulate.”

I tried to sidestep him, but he moved faster than a man with a broken neck should have been able to move. His arms wrapped around me before I could evade them, pulling me against his chest, the medical cast pressing against my shoulder, and he held me with the desperate strength of a man clinging to the edge of a cliff.

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